India vs New Zealand, ICC Champions Trophy Final 2000: Indian cricket fans can never forget this day i.e. 15th October. Today can also be called a very bad day for Indian cricket. In fact, on this day 24 years ago, New Zealand defeated India in the final of the ICC Champions Trophy.
We are talking about the 2000 Champions Trophy. Kiwi team was in front of Team India in the final of this tournament. Sourav Ganguly was the captain of India and the team included legends like Sachin Tendulkar, Rahul Dravid, Yuvraj Singh, Vinod Kambli and Robin Singh. In bowling, there were greats like Zaheer Khan, Venkatesh Prasad, Ajit Agarkar and Anil Kumble. Then India missed out on becoming champion.
Talking about the title match, India had scored 264 runs for 6 wickets in 50 overs after the first play. Captain Sourav Ganguly played a brilliant inning of 117 runs for India. 9 fours and 4 sixes came from Dada’s bat. God of cricket Sachin Tendulkar scored 69 runs. However, after this no batsman could play a big innings. Still, considering India’s bowling, this match was considered a winning score.
While chasing the target of 265 runs, New Zealand at one time lost two wickets at the score of just 37. Then the third wicket fell for 82 runs, the fourth wicket fell for 109 runs and half the team returned to the pavilion at 132 runs. It seemed that now India would easily win this match and take the title, but Chris Cranes turned the whole game upside down. He played a match winning inning of 102 unbeaten runs. All-rounder Chris Harris, who came to bat at number seven for the Cranes, also gave. Harris scored 46 runs. Thanks to the innings of these two, the Kiwi team chased the target with three balls remaining.
